Health & Safety is a State of Mind

I had the pleasure of reading Donna Chrobak's article in OHS online about the psychology of a safe workplace. In it she makes a beautifully articulated argument for going beyond just incident prevention to engage the psychological needs of workers. She argues that allowing them to feel heard, understood, and a part of a greater objective creates a safer workplace.

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In my opinon, this is due to the fact that personal investment creates a more resilient collective attitude within a workplace. Part of the challenge of making that idea a reality is the difficulty in being able to see and quantify the invisible impact of an engaged workforce. It's not something that is always immediately apparent but the cost of ignoring it can be catastrophic as we are unfortunately seeing in other areas of our society.

Here are four steps to get started on worker engagement.

1. Begin building health and wellness into your safety communications

2. Give employees a platform to share ideas and be heard

3. Connect Departments for a diverse set of ideas

4. Recognize and reward employees

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Our hope when we designed ZERO was that it would facilitate a faster and more immediate way to translate these ideas across teams, locations, and departments. The entire system is built around collaboration. It allows anyone with permission the ability to provide insight about something they deem hazardous, connects skilled responders, and follows tasks to a safe conclusion. We believe that this kind of communication is essential to creating an environment where workers feel valued and contribute to each others safety on an ongoing basis.